Monday, February 26, 2018

I noticed that many readers of this blog are fans of
Jennifer Lawrence. As the Romans used to say: De gustibus non est disputandum.

I am sure that J. Law fans want to keep up to date on her
latest doings and undoings. So I will report on a note from New York Magazine.

As you doubtlessly know, Lawrence was the victim of a hacker
who accessed her nude photos and disseminated them across cyberspace. There is
no question that it was a crime. We have no sympathy for the hacker, who, if I
recall correctly, is now receiving his just reward in prison.

Of course, we all know that she should never have taken such
photos. Period. End of story. That does not mitigate the guilt of the hacker,
but seriously folks, you do not take pictures of your naked glory and assume
that no one will ever share them with the hockey team.

The story at the time claimed that Lawrence had done it
because her boyfriend had requested them. You see, he was going to
be away from her for a period of time and was facing a dire choice, the kind
that is only intelligible to members of the millennial generation. He told his
inamorata that he was either going to masturbate while gazing on pictures of
her naked loveliness or else he was going to perform the same action while gazing on pictures of
porn stars. Speaking of commitment. Speaking of respect. Speaking of true love.

Apparently, J. Law found this argument persuasive. Perhaps you have
to be very young to believe it, but such is the love life of our younger generation.
And then they wonder why their relationships don’t last.

Anyway, Lawrence felt violated by the exposure. She suffered
enormous anguish. It seems perfectly normal. We might not feel her pain, but we
certainly sympathize.

How do you overcome the shame you feel when your nakedness
is flashed around the world, when your dignity has been compromised,
unintentionally. How do you show that you did not consent?

Well, let’s allow the star to speak for herself on Sixty
Minutes:

In a
new interview, Jennifer Lawrence says that, up until recently, being the victim
of a 2014 nude-photo hack had a lingering effect on her career.
She tells 60 Minutesthat
the invasion of privacy made her reluctant to do nudity in films, but that she
couldn’t pass up the script for Red
Sparrowbecause of that fear and decided to reclaim authority over her
body in the film. “I realized there’s a difference between consent and not. I
showed up for the first day and I did it and I felt empowered,” she says. “I
feel like something that was taken from me, I got back.” In the Russian spy
film, one scene required J.Law to go topless, and if anyone has a problem with
it she has some words for you: “It’s my body, it’s my art, and it’s my choice.
And if you don’t like boobs, you should not go see Red Sparrow.”

Now, another generation of girls is going to believe that
they can feel empowered by flashing their boobs to the world. And then they wonder why no one respects them.

True enough, it’s
about consent. When your pictures are hacked, you have not consented to the exposure. And yet,
people’s minds are filled with these pictures. How do you rid their minds of the image. And also, how do you show that you did not consent? Which means: did you want the world to see you naked?
Which implies: do you have good character?

If you choose to flash the world in a movie, you are saying that you consent, that you lack a functioning sense of shame.
Someone is giving the actress some very bad advice, indeed. If such should
happen to you, the first rule is to establish that you do not consent and that
displaying your private parts in the public square says nothing about your
character.

How do you do it?

Simple: you keep your clothes on. You keep your shirt on. You keep your pants on. You emphasize modesty in your personal behavior and in your artistic expressions. At a time
when male directors and producers seem to think that great art can only happen
when they harass young women, or better, talk them out of their clothes, a world famous movie star, one who makes an enormous amount of
money, could have set a good example by saying No to nudity.

Given CGI now apparently movie stars have the best or the worst of all world. Their faces can be projected onto any anonymous nude body (or even completely virtue body) for the indiscreet scenes.

I imagine that'll be the next step for sharing nude photos with lovers. You just download your "nude selfie" app, pick the body, and angle, and presto, your lover is happy, and you don't have to lose those embarrassing love handles, just in case its leaked.

Jokes aside of the brave new world, I agree, women ought to learn they can say no to men, and something like this is a perfectly good place to start. Soon #MeToo can be #NotMe.

IAC, I see I accidentally wrote "virtue" instead of "virtual", and CGI is Computer Generated Imagery, if that helps. Otherwise I'm agreeing with Stuart, women should be stronger and not share nude images of themselves, real or fake, just because their boyfriends ask for them.